2 Samuel · chapter 11 of 24
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2 Samuel 11 tells how David, staying behind in Jerusalem while his army is at war, sees Bathsheba bathing, takes her and gets her pregnant. To cover it up he brings her husband, Uriah the Hittite, home, and when that fails he orders Joab to put him at the front of the battle so he will die. The chapter ends by saying that what David had done displeased the Lord.
2 Samuel 11 is the turning point of David's life: the anointed, victorious and devout king falls into adultery and murder. The account, told with restraint, shows how one sin leads to another and prepares the consequences that will mark the rest of the book. It is a warning for every leader, and also a reminder that the Bible does not idealize its heroes.
It is spring, the time when kings go out to war, and David sends Joab with the army to besiege Rabbah of Ammon, but he himself stays in Jerusalem. One evening, rising from his bed, he sees from the roof a very beautiful woman bathing. He inquires about her: she is Bathsheba, daughter of Eliam and wife of Uriah the Hittite, one of his mighty men. David sends messengers, takes her, lies with her and she returns home. Soon afterward she sends word that she is pregnant.
David orders Joab to send him Uriah. When he arrives, David asks about the war and tells him to go down to his house and wash his feet. But Uriah sleeps at the door of the palace with the king's servants. When David asks why, he answers that the ark, Israel and Judah are staying in tents and his comrades are camping in the open field, so he cannot go to eat, drink and lie with his wife. David keeps him one more day, makes him drunk, but Uriah still does not go home.
David writes a letter to Joab and sends it by Uriah's own hand: put him in the front line where the fighting is fiercest, then draw back from him so that he will be struck down and die. Joab assigns Uriah to a place near the enemy's strongest men. Uriah dies along with other servants of David. Joab sends a report, anticipating the king's anger over the maneuver, and tells the messenger to add that Uriah the Hittite is also dead. David replies that he should not be troubled, for the sword devours now one and now another. Bathsheba mourns her husband; when the mourning is over, David brings her to his house, she becomes his wife and bears him a son. But the thing David had done displeased the Lord.
References follow ESV book names and verse numbers. Read each verse in your Bible before the explanation.
The narrator observes that it was the time when kings go out to war, but David stayed in Jerusalem. The first step in his fall is being absent from his place of responsibility, leaving him with free time and no oversight.
David sends messengers, takes Bathsheba and lies with her. As king he uses his power over a married woman who has no way to refuse, so the sin is adultery and abuse of authority.
Uriah says that the ark, Israel and Judah are in tents and that he will not go to his house to eat and lie with his wife. The integrity of this foreign soldier contrasts with the conduct of his king.
The narrator concludes that what David had done was evil in the sight of the Lord. After so much cover-up, God's judgment has the last word, and it prepares the confrontation with the prophet Nathan.
6 questions with answers and references, ready for Sunday school, small group or a Bible quiz night.
Answer: On the roof of his palace in Jerusalem, while the army was at war. — 2 Samuel 11:1-2
Answer: Uriah the Hittite, one of David's mighty men. — 2 Samuel 11:3
Answer: That she was pregnant. — 2 Samuel 11:5
Answer: Because the ark, Israel and Judah were staying in tents and he could not eat, drink and lie with his wife. — 2 Samuel 11:11
Answer: To put Uriah in the front line where the fighting was fiercest and draw back from him so that he would die. — 2 Samuel 11:14-15
Answer: That it was evil in the sight of the Lord. — 2 Samuel 11:27
The chapter warns that sin rarely begins with a big decision. David stayed where he should not have, looked at what he should not have and used his power to take what was not his. A leader talking with a small group can think about the temptations of their own place of responsibility and how to be accountable to others.
It also shows that a cover-up deepens the harm. David could have confessed and did not; each attempt to hide his fault led him to something worse. The good news, which comes in the next chapter, is that God seeks the sinner and offers forgiveness to the one who confesses.
2 Samuel 11 leaves David with a new wife, a son on the way and an apparently quiet conscience, but under the Lord's gaze. In 2 Samuel 12, God sends the prophet Nathan to confront him, and David confesses his sin.
The text accuses her of nothing. David sends messengers for her and it is he who acts with a king's power, and later the prophet blames only David. The Bible presents Bathsheba as a person with little room to decide before the king.
To cover up Bathsheba's pregnancy after Uriah refused to go home. Uriah's death made it possible for David to take the widow as his wife. The text treats it as murder, and Nathan will say so openly.
He was a foreign soldier of Hittite origin, yet a worshiper of the Lord, one of David's mighty men. His loyalty to the ark and his comrades contrasts with David's conduct, and 2 Samuel 23 counts him among the thirty.